diopter testby Nicholas Hartsweiker, Seventeenth Dutch Microscope
e century. Granger/Bridgeman Pictures
IN ATTIC OF SCIENCE (4/6) – After the invention of the microscope, naturalists believed that they saw miniature individuals in sperm. Others claim that it is the egg that contains all future generations. Dive into the world of small animals.
How are diseases born? What is in the center of the earth? What is fire? Throughout history, man has tried to explain the world to himself… and he has often been wrong. Le Figaro It tells you about some of the trial and error that made science.
Shortly after the invention of the microscope, European natural scientists took possession of the tool to observe living things and formulate reproductive theories that could make you smile today. “This does not mean that our ancestors were stupid!”, warns Matthew Cobb, a biologist at the University of Manchester. Should “To put these discoveries into the context and theories of the times and not to judge retroactively.”Stéphane Tirard, professor of epistemology at the University of Nantes, insists.
Read alsoMiasma, those epidemics from which epidemics were born
In 1677 the observation of sperms, described as “animal sacs”, was first reported by Anthony van Leeuwenhoek, of a family of Dutch fabrics. Inspired by a medical student…
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